Birthday Party Cartoon Portraits

Took a different approach with this Star Wars theme birthday party, and sketched the guests as they enjoyed the activities rather that have them stand still for their cartoon portraits.

A couple of guests did spot me in the corner as I drew, so they stood still for a couple of minutes resulting in a more precise likeness.

By the end of the two hour party, each guests had at least one Jedi portrait to take home.  Two girls went home with extra portraits: mermaid, fairy, and princess to round up the evening.

Custom Greeting Cards made with Art Markers

Couple of custom greeting cards for Nicole & Camila colored with Prismacolor double ended markers.
Pretty happy with her birthday card.

Always keep a couple of reliable drawing tools handy, so you can get some sketching practice done at every opportunity that presents itself.

Cartoon Sketching at Children's Museum Birthday Party - Photo Journal

Did some cartoon sketching for the double birthday party at the Miami Children's Museum this past Saturday. Turned out be be a great choice of venue especially since it was a rather rainy day, and the staff did such a great job setting up and decorating the reserved classrooms for the event. Any gig where you do not have to worry about battling the elements is off to a great start.
I did not know we were going to have such a large dry erase board available at the party venue, but luckily I had one of my black Expo markers in my rolling case (leftover from my after-school manga classes). Thus I quickly doodled a few more cartoon samples on it as a demonstration of my sketching speed.
Ta-da!
A few colored samples and the two blank templates available were shown on my side easel.
Birthday girl Nicole and a friend stopped by for the first time at the cartooning corner once we finished setting up.The little guests starting looking over the pictures in display to figure out what to ask for in their own souvenir party sketches.
The very first drawing request of the afternoon was for a forest ranger from the single sketchbook that I brought along to the party.
Once we got started, there was a steady line of guests watching and enjoying the creation of several cartoon sketches while patiently waiting and deciding their own drawing requests.
Not surprisingly, most girls wanted to be drawn wearing mermaid tails or butterfly wings in their cartoon versions.
Several boys in a row wanted to be drawn as the "Caped Crusader: Batman" which luckily happens to be a favorite childhood hero of mine.
Nicole managed to stopped by for a second visit to the Cartooning Corner as the other birthday activities started winding down.
Most boys requested the always popular themes of superheroes or dragon sketches, but Mikey (tallest kid in the crowd) surprised me by asking just for a drawing of himself without the extra fantasy elements. Thus I went with a fairly straight cartoon portrait approach. Unfortunately my helper did not manage to document the finished drawings given the deluge of requests towards the end of the party and the fact that we had to pack up in a bit of a hurry. It was a lot of fun, and I estimate we managed to complete 20-25 sketches in the second half of the party.

Blank Cartoon Sketching Templates for birthday party

Designed these blank templates for my nieces' birthday party at the Miami Children's Museum.This "Thank you" blank sketching template features both birthday girls as Japanese princesses (Hime) and leaves enough room for adding a little friend in kimono, ninja, or samurai garb depending on the guest's preference. Also printed the cartoons of the two of them on a fabric transfer sheet to make a couple of t-shirts as bonus present.
Youngest birthday girl in fairy mode waiting for a few friends to join her in the clear sky.
This blank template features the other birthday girl in mermaid mode and has plenty of blank space to add a couple of friends as merfolk and few fishies.